WRPI Participating in Internet Radio "Day of Silence"
If you take a look at the WRPI Home Page, you will find the following announcement posted:
We Interrupt This Internet Stream...
WRPI will not stream today and will instead, participate in the Day of Silence, a demonstration of the impact that the DMCA will have on Internet Broadcasting.
What is the Day of Silence and why is it being observed? USA Today covered the story on Monday in its article Net Radio Will Pull Plug This Week to Protest Fees.
We encourage all Rensselaer alumni who appreciate the ability to listen to WRPI for any reason to call their Congressman and Senators and ask them to oppose the CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel) proposal. The U.S. Copyright Office provides complete details on the CARP Webcasting Rate Proposal. For more information on why it would be difficult for WRPI to continue webcasting under the CARP Webcasting Royalties, read the previously posted RCNJ article on WRPI and CARP.
Update: Dave Aiello wrote to the staff of WRPI to inform them of the RCNJ's interest in this issue. Read on for the text of his letter....
Dave Aiello wrote:
Dear Staff of WRPI:As President of the Rensselaer Club of New Jersey, a regional chapter of the Rensselaer Alumni Association, I have taken the following actions to alert the alumni in our area to the problems you face if the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel's webcasting royalty proposal goes into affect:
On April 23, I posted an article on our chapter's website that pointed to the article in The Polytechnic about the impact of the CARP proposal on WRPI. That article is located here:
http://www.rcnj.org/on_campus/2002/04/23/0529224.shtml
This morning, I posted an article on WRPI's participating in the Internet Radio Day of Silence. The article reads, in part, "We encourage all Rensselaer alumni who appreciate the ability to listen to WRPI for any reason to call their Congressman and Senators and ask them to oppose the CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel) proposal." That article is located here:http://www.rcnj.org/on_campus/2002/05/01/0648251.shtml
Finally, I called the Washington offices of my congressional representatives, Congressman Rush Holt, Senators Jon Corzine and Robert Toricelli, and asked what their positions are on the CARP webcasting royalty proposal. I have not received any response from them yet, but in my messages, I expressed an interest in the impact of the CARP proposal on college radio stations, and indicated that royalty fees and record keeping requirements would place an unfair burden on people like you.
I hope to hear back from my congressional representatives in the next few days. Please let me know if you would like me to relate any conversations I have with their offices to you.
In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you would let me know what else the alumni can do to support WRPI on this issue. I know that a number of alumni in the State of New Jersey regularly listen to WRPI via your webcast, and we would miss it if it became impractical to stream your programming in the future.
Best regards,
Dave Aiello '89
President
Rensselaer Club of New Jersey
http://www.rcnj.org/
609-844-1200 x 101, phone
609-844-1228 fax